Charles A. Kiesler’s research while affiliated with University of Kansas and other places

Discusses the brief filed by the American Psychological Association (APA) in Virginia Academy of Clinical Psychologists v. Blue Shield of Virginia, et al. The case began when Blue Shield of Richmond refused to reimburse licensed psychologists without both physician supervision and referral. On April 9, 1979, after Judge Warriner decided against the clinical psychologists in US District Court, the Virginia Academy of Clinical Psychologists appealed this ruling, with the APA filing an amicus brief. The appeal was upheld, resulting in major victories for psychologists and their clients. (0 ref)

Discusses the brief filed by the American Psychological Association (APA) in Virginia Academy of Clinical Psychologists v. Blue Shield of Virginia, et al. The case began when Blue Shield of Richmond refused to reimburse licensed psychologists without both physician supervision and referral. On April 9, 1979, after Judge Warriner decided against the clinical psychologists in US District Court, the Virginia Academy of Clinical Psychologists appealed this ruling, with the APA filing an amicus brief. The appeal was upheld, resulting in major victories for psychologists and their clients. (0 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Examines whether traditional manipulations of cognitive dissonance are arousing or motivating to the S and reviews the empirical evidence on this issue. Effects of dissonance produced either by decisions or by counterattitudinal behavior are reviewed in 4 topical areas: (a) response competition and verbal performance in task situations, (b) incidental retention in task situations, (c) misattribution of arousal states, and (d) physiological correlates. It is concluded that the evidence is consistent with a broad interpretation of dissonance as an arousal state. (11/2 p ref)

Recently, there has been a great deal of dissatisfaction expressed about social psychology as a field. As described by Shaver (1974), the crisis “… was that despite the development of an impressive methodology, many American social psychologists felt they had neither contributed substantially to the improvement of social life nor succeeded in developing a coherent scientific discipline” (p. 356). Jahoda (1974) describes it as a “failure of nerve” that “many people no longer fully believe in what they are doing, feeling that they may be on the wrong track” (p. 105). Jahoda describes the current split among social psychologists as developing “between those who wish to press on along the same well established route of empirical research and those who felt it was not getting us anywhere” (p. 105).

The effects of shifting opinions within a group upon majority opinion, communication between members and perceived attractiveness of other members were studied. Each subject perceived himself to be a member of the majority in a group whose opinion was divided 6–2 on an important issue. But later one to three group members changed their vote. Six conditions of change were established: Control, majority reactionary, majority compromise, majority defection (5-3), minority compromise, minority compromise plus majority reactionary. Only majority compromise or defection affected majority opinion (private and public). Majority members were disliked when they deviated from majority opinion, but particularly so when they shifted toward minority opinion. Minority members were liked most when they induced a majority member to compromise (but not defect). Majority communication to minority occurred most when the minority was compromising, but most disagreement with minority opinion was expressed when a majority member had either compromised or defected.

St4mnary.-Based upon an analysis of anecdotal evidence in social reality, a laboratory experiment was carried out in which were varied: one's prior commiunent to consonant behavior and the legitimacy and attitudinal stance (agreedisagree) of a communicator Legitimacy of a communicator was defined as independent of his prestige, sincerity, and personal attractiveness, and limited to his qualifications to speak on a specific issue. A variety of measures were taken to define Ss' perceptions of legitimate and illegitimate communicators. Legitimacy tended not to affect uncommitted Ss. Committed Ss responded positively to the legitimate communicator and negatively (boomerang) to the illegitimate speaker, regarding artitude change, behavioroid measures, and information-seeking, regardless of the actitudinal stance of the communicator.

It is suggested that people worry about potentially negative implications of attitudinally explicit behavior, especially when their commitment or perceived responsibility for the behavior is high. In 2 experiments with 76 and 121 undergraduates, respectively, Ss agreed to tape-record a public (high-commitment) or anonymous (low-commitment) speech advocating a position consistent with their own. Ss in Exp I chose 2 tasks to work on while waiting for the recording studio to become available. High-commitment Ss avoided the task which would have forced them to think about the implications of their commitment (how others would react to the content of the speech). In Exp II this effect was replicated; but in a different set of conditions, highly committed Ss (more than those less committed) chose a task which allowed them to reinterpret their prior behavioral commitment innocuously (as related to speech accents and not attitude). The implications for attribution theory and the process of inferring belief from behavior are discussed. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Paired meaningful adjectives with the onset and offset of electric shock, to establish 2 attitudes, 1 based on negative affect and 1 based on positive affect, within each of 47 female undergraduates. Words paired with the onset of shock were evaluated more negatively; words paired with the offset of shock, more positively. Conditioned affect also generalized to words similar in meaning. Results were stronger for Ss who showed independent physiological evidence of conditioning and for the adjective which was initially more neutral in evaluation. The success of an elaborate cover story, including a disguised posttest given by a 2nd E, suggested that the demand characteristics of the experimental situation could not account for the data. (26 ref.)

Investigated J. L. Freedman and S. C. Fraser's (see 40:10) suggestion that self-percept may affect the likelihood that individuals will act on an attitude. The probability of 60 male undergraduates' complying with E 2's request to distribute anti-air-pollution leaflets was assessed following E 1's manipulation of high or low payment ($1.50 or$10) and feedback to Ss indicating they (1) had a "doer" personality which entitled them to this payment (doer self-percept-inequity); (2) had a "doer" personality, but were entitled to this payment because of their performance on an experimental task (doer self-percept-no inequity); or (3) were entitled to this payment because of their task performance (no doer self-percept-no inequity). The probability of compliance was greater for high- than low-payment Ss (p < .05), and greater for Ss who were told that payment was contingent upon their personality than for those in other feedback conditions (p < .01). Although both inequity motivation and the self-percept manipulation were necessary to increase the likelihood of Ss acting on an attitude, the results are consistent with Freedman and Fraser's suggestion. They also tend to support some inequity theory assumptions employed in the experimental manipulations. (19 ref.)